


burning stardust

by the_mixed_up_files_of_me



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Force Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-18 09:40:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13097409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_mixed_up_files_of_me/pseuds/the_mixed_up_files_of_me
Summary: ❛"How could you do this, Ben?" It's an inevitable question, one that is so blatantly obvious that she hates it. "Or should I say, Kylo? Would you prefer it?"His fragile expression is trembling yet the fire in his dark eyes balances him..."Rey..."❜





	burning stardust

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everybody!
> 
> So I got to watch The Last Jedi. And. I'm. Shook. It's so amazing! The Rey and Kylo/Ben scenes were so beautifully written and I am already looking forward to the resolution in the next movie ^.^ Enough of me rambling! I really hope you all like this fic. Happy reading! Xx

Her arms and legs are taut and throbbing as Rey swings her legs over the edge of her bed. Sleeping is a futile endeavour, slipping away from her like running the sands of Jakku through her fingers.

Sitting on the edge of her bunk, she's aware of how empty it is. The rest of the ship is silent as the others sleep on; Rey envies their ability to sink into restful sleep. Thoughts, scattered and vague filter in, beginning to fill in the silence. Digging her fingertips into the hard mattress, Rey submits to the uncertain and conflicting thoughts that have begged to be processed in these incredibly twisted few days.

 _Luke's gone_ , drifts the most bittersweet thought. This brings forth mixed emotions; she wishes that she could have known him longer, learned more from him. Taking comfort in the reassuring reminder that he is at peace, her distant smile fades on her features as she finds herself about the Skywalker that is far from peace.

 _He made his choice_ , sings the one voice in her mind as the other one, far more opposite reminds her, _he murdered his leader for me. For us. He wanted me to be with him that badly_ —

"You should have come with me."

His low voice breaking through Rey's mind is the last thing she wants now; just his voice is enough to prick her eyes with angry tears. Choking and swallowing them back, Rey wants to resist him, wants to push him out.

And yet.

And yet she's burning like a sun with just enough rage inside of her core to disintegrate her desperation.

Her reply is clipped on her tongue. "I will never side with you on this."

If he has a reaction, she doesn't see it. Grappling with hearing his voice alone distracts her from wondering where he is. It's never just a voice, there has always been his presence with it. Realisation flickering in her eyes, the sudden tension between her shoulder blades builds as she turns around on her bed, locking eyes on Ben Solo.

Not Kylo, it can't be Kylo, this is a young man with warm eyes and a sorrow-filled expression. The line between Kylo and Ben is thin, wavering and yet so vividly clear to Rey.

Warmth pools in her cheeks. "How are you in my..."

"From my view, you're in mine."

"A certain point of view indeed," Rey bitterly replies. She can't see his surroundings but she senses them. Harsh, cold and unforgiving around him.

He sits up, the proximity between them closing rapidly. Rey can hardly bring herself to look at him without faltering; keeping her gaze trained on the ceiling, she spits, "Go away."

"I can't go away if I'm not there with you," Ben replies, the final two words of his sentence cutting into Rey. With you. Lacking resentment on the surface, scraping away to something almost akin to vulnerability, longing, _aching_.

It's that ache in his voice that twists her chest. The voice of a victim trapped inside of a villains body, being controlled and crushed with his own rage and pain. Her throat throbs as she swallows. He's so close, she can almost feel the outline of his body against her's. Dragging her gaze towards him at last, she knows she _should_ stand up, move away, pull back.

Resorting to a cooler tone, he adds, "Besides, you think I'm choosing to do this?"

 _The Force_ , Rey resignedly admits, _always trying to gravitate us towards each other_. When she first saw him in the forest, tall and intimidating in his mask and with scarlet saber, something deep in her had stirred. When he'd shed the mask before her with unexpected reverence, she was inexplicably aware that she'd been looking for him her entire life. On Jakku, she'd seen him before in a blissful daydream, in a twisted nightmare.

Never had she thought that the fleeting feeling was something far larger than herself and her own perception.

"How could you do this, Ben?" It's an inevitable question, one that is so blatantly obvious that she hates it. "Or should I say, Kylo? Would you prefer it?"

His fragile expression is trembling yet the fire in his dark eyes balances him, revealing the borderline between where Ben rises to meet Kylo. "Rey..."

The escalating emotions blossom as a thorny rose inside of her, her words hollow in her throat. "Tell me why."

He says nothing.

Her muscles tense and seize, tension sliding down her arms and curling her fingers towards her palms in a tight grip. Keeping herself from swinging her fists at him, although the dark streak within her begs to, Rey digs her fingernails into her palms. Where there had been intimacy, there is now separation, where there had been a gentle caress with exploring fingertips, there is now raw anger brimming and spilling over.

Her repetition of her question feels stupid and mute in her mouth. "Tell me."

Silent, Ben turns as if staring at the flat wall of her bunk; for a moment, Rey can see what he's looking at too. It's a window to the stars in his bedroom. Rey looks past him and sees his reflection in the window; not her own, she's hardly there in person. Finally Ben looks at her, just her. The window dissolves back into the solid wall in her room.

"My path is decided. Inevitable." His tone is clipped, short. He draws in a breath, almost murmuring to himself more than her, "I'm done."

Her head shakes sharply. "You don't have to do this, any of this. I can feel your conflict, it's stronger than ever." Leaning forward, conviction and determination painted on her features with brilliant strokes, she says, "You just have to let yourself see that. Maker, why can't you?" The pitch, the hesitation in her throat scrapes her mouth. Clamping her jaw so tightly that her teeth ache, she holds herself back from pressing on with her outburst.

He studies her a moment with consideration. Silence fills the space between them, heavy and thoughtful. "There are something things that I can't be. I can't be what you want me to be, Rey." His voice falters, finally untying with the truth he has hidden this entire time. "You left me."

She retorts, "Because you were making a stupid choice and I'm not going along with it with you."

"I murdered my leader for you. For us. What more do you want from me?" There's heat and pain and simmering despair wrapped into his voice.

Her tone matches his. "I want Ben Solo back!"

"He's dead. He was weak."

Rey stares at him, stares into his eyes and loathes the sight of Kylo Ren, murderer of Ben Solo. "Ben Solo was, _is_ , a kind young boy with hope just like his mother. Kylo Ren," she continues, hating the sound of the name aloud almost as much as he does, "is a mask. Only the weak hide behind masks. Are you not strong enough to be kind again?"

His lips gradually part, searching for words, a quick reply or anything other than the silence that follows her statement. It hangs, as if visible, between them and saturates the air.

And then he's gone.

And in his world, so is she.

Rey blinks, mutely gazing at the space in her bed where he was only seconds before. _The Force can't do this now_ , she desperately thinks, _I almost reached him_.

_Please, please don't go now._

Rey almost believes that this is her own thought; it feels like her own yet she can't control it, can't suppress or add anything to it at all. Standing alone in her mind, it's a plea, a beg, a prayer.

It's not her own voice at all.

It's Ben's.

Her eyes drop shut, straining, struggling to find him through it. Her veins hum, hollow and rushing in her body as the power not her own flows through her. Since the first time she locked eyes on him through their bonding visions, it has never been voluntary. Occasionally even happening in compromising situations. And now she demands the Force to guide and search, go against it's own grain to find Ben now.

Her teeth are gritted, jarring breaths beginning to shake her as she pushes against the invisible power of the Force.

It _hurts_.

" _Ben_." She doesn't know if she's speak his name aloud or not; it feels more like screaming yet her mouth is painfully shut. Unbeknownst to her, the bed beneath her begins to groan and buckle beneath her, the scattered objects around her levitating higher and higher--

Almost beginning to suffocate from the effort, Rey struggles to envision Ben and only Ben. What every aspect of him looks like; the dark lashes that fringe his vulnerable eyes, the low, rolling tone of his voice, his broad shoulders that frame her flawlessly. And their memories together, Rey desperately replays them; the smooth sensation of his bare fingertips against her's above the heat of the fire, her hand reaching to pull him against her back in the throne room. That gentle reminder and one touch that reassured them both _I am here for you_.

She doesn't dwell on the Force, not the impenetrable block between them, not their differences and anger, not anything other than _him_. The Force craves purpose, Luke had once mentioned in their brief lessons that seem so, so long ago.

Her purpose shines brightly, growing stronger with each pulse of her heart.

Until everything snaps.

Her breath leaves her lungs in a rush, the pain subsiding almost instantly. The narrow sensation in her mind and heart widens, open and free. Buoyancy unfolds in her mind, the cramped space now turning fluid. Gathering herself, her energy and presence, she lets her eyes flicker open.

Ben is stunned.

To defy the Force, to stimulate it to act when it already had definitively separated them...the effort is more than difficult, it's _dangerous_. And yet she did it, she did it for him and risked everything not unlike when he had put everything on the line for her in the throne room.

"Rey!" Raw, unrepressed.

Her gaze focuses on him, his body only inches from her's again, thinly covered by the sheets. The warm humming heartbeat of their bond is a soothing sound to them both; the Force gave in to her, letting them have this and working with her instead of against.

"How did you..." Words slip past him; he can't catch any. Finally, in a voice hardly above a breath, "Why did you do this?"

"We're not finished yet."

He bates his breath and waits for her to continue. Rey, exhausted to the bone, wants nothing more now than to collapse beside him and just let the galaxy wash past them and let them be. Fighting this, Rey says with only a fraction of the longing that she feels, "Be kind, Ben. If not for yourself, for your mother. At least, for me. You know the right thing to do, I can't make you. No one can."

He looks away from her; in his facial profile, she's able to see that the seeming anger on his face is a careful mask over the open wound of sadness on his features. "It's too late."

"No one is ever really gone," Rey says almost involuntarily, as if the words filter into her mind from something, _someone_ familiar and distant. Saying this aloud crashes over her in a tidal wave of relief and most of all, hope. Hope, the only thing that has kept her alive her entire life. A spark in her that cannot be blown out, not even by the strongest tempests that swirl in her life.

His eyes flicker before unsuppressed tears glass over his dark gaze. His hand moves to scrape them away abrasively; Rey is too quick for him, reaching forward. Her cool skin presses against his cheek. So tangible, so real that he can imagine perfectly how her hair would feel around his fingers, her lips against his. It's a simple gesture, pure and untainted by even their own sweat and tears, their own culmination of hate and love that has unfurled between them.

Her muscles are still quivering from the effort to even connect with him now. Leaning forward, her forehead meets his. Subconsciously, she expects him to want to pull away.

He doesn't; he moves closer.

This incredibly human motion lifts her heart inside of her chest. Closing his eyes, breathing her in, the gnawing desire for this moment to never change, never fade away rushes through him in uncontrollable waves.

A soft, muted sound escapes his throat as Rey drops her head, finding his lips with her's. She's soft, so gentle that it's a whisper of a kiss. Locking up, his arms limply hang at his sides, the conflicting thoughts and emotions overrunning his mind in a race. Physical touch of any kind he's been deprived of for years; so has she. Shaken by her own impulsiveness, Rey draws back to look him in the eyes. He doesn't take his eyes off of her; he never has, Rey is acutely aware of this.

Tomorrow is an unwritten page, open and unknown to either of them. What the Resistance will do, what the First Order will do, what _Ben_ will do is difficult to foresee. Their future shifts with every breath, every fleeting thought.

Tonight, however, the galaxy can ignite with flames and they'll still be together in the only safe place they know. The universe that the Force lets them have with each other, unexplored and unknown to anyone else.

Lowering herself onto his chest, her burning eyes tightly shut. He's so real beneath her, a solid and firm presence. One of his bare hands carefully lifts and with trepidation, he pushes his fingers into the folds of her messily knotted hair. Holding her head against him, her presence pressing on him is more reassuring than words.

In the morning, Rey knows that she'll wake up to an empty, cold bed and so will he. With power that can rewrite destiny, they find solace in the faint but promising knowledge that their bond can and _will_ burn down anything that stands in their way; Darkness, Light, the Force and even the entire galaxy built on stardust.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please leave a comment or kudos if you liked this. Xx


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